Tech bro ennui, the societal problem.
In this essay I will explore solutions to this problems.
Solution 1. Really high marginal tax rates. Oh, this solves the problem, guess my work here is done.
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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I'm glad I don't see other people as NPCs, otherwise I couldn't delight in these vapid grifters' perpetual insatisfaction.
Within 5 minutes of my first hike, the trees smiled at me and whispered their simple wisdom.
This probably only sounds profound to people who haven't been outside in 7 years. Don't get me wrong hiking is good for the soul. But if it hits you that hard after five minutes you're probably terminally online.
~~Also why can't trees have complex wisdom gosh darn it?~~
Drugs
To be fair, he could just be a really, really shitty writer.
reminder: one does not, under any circumstances, have to "give it to them". these weird fuckers already have all the water carriers they need
and no, it doesn't appear to be the case that this person is merely a shitty writer
(nor is that the only thing they're shitty about)
To be fair, he is a really, really shitty writer in addition to the other flaws.
at least for once it isn't the kind of post where a bayfucker went "I took acid in a park and you wouldn't believe what I discovered"
Just the opening alone, doesn't know what to do with his life, but mentions 'NPC coworkers' (that is also so fucking weird, I don't think I have worked with much people who gave off an NPC vibe off at all, like people always seemed like people with lives and hobbies, social lives, families interests, stuff they cared about, etc.
It started to dawn on me that what I actually wanted was to look like Elon, and that is incredibly cringe. It hurts to even type this out.
My reactions to this 'ow come on, you call others NPCs?!' and 'at least he knows it is cringe'
When I got back home and regaled my friends with my mountain stories, one of my friends joked that I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt. So I reached out to some people and got in.
This has got to be a parody.
So now I’m in Hawaii. I’m learning physics.
Ha, I recently watched, this video billionaires want you to know they could have done physics by actual Theoretical Physicist, Angela Collier. I'm quite sure he will not be getting an actual degree in physics.
I don't have the energy to read the orange site comments.
sheesh i guess life sciences are too much of a dirty job [1] for billionaire megaminds. unless they want to pull a theranos, of course
[1] unlike with physics to some degree, or maths generally or CS specifically you won't get too far on blackboard only without lab work. like selected subfields of physics, biotech has that aura of place where all these old scifi tropes that sv wankers misunderstand and fawn over come to life, and also there's some crossover with startup/vc crowd
I love that video because until I watched it, I didn't realise how much of a thing it was. Physics seems to be a magnet for the "iamverysmart" types; I feel sorry for actual physicists
Remember that actual physicists can fall into the same trap, and believe themselves to be very smart too. Plenty suffer an irresistible urge to fix every other field that’s doing it wrong.
As an alternative to the various xkcds on the subject, have an smbc instead.
One time I tried explaining to a colleague that a particular paper using an ML model to determine sexual orientation based on selfies was stupid as shit. Sexual orientation is not something you can confirm (gender is a social construct and sexual orientation is self-reported), nor it it encoded in a person's face, so hello ontological error^[1]^.
This colleague's response was "that's how science works." Assuming that he knew that computer science isn't really a science^[2]^, I told him it suggested a fundamental misunderstanding of science, which resulted in the following exchange:
Colleague: Well, I have a PhD in Computer Science
Me: I basically do too^[3]^ and Computer Science is not a science. You could argue that it's a branch of math
Colleague: OK, but my undergrad was in Physics
It's like these dorks saw this one amusing xckd comic, missed the point entirely, and then decided they wanted to be the physicist in the panel?
[1]: The model is also less accurate than
def sexual_orientation(person):
return "straight"
ignoring the ontological error.
[2]: I have never once heard a single part of the scientific method brought up since I started computer science. When I was hanging out with the pure mathematicians, they seemed to generally get this: A formal system alone is not fucking science, even if you're using it to model the real world.
[3]: I was at the "all but dissertation" stage of my PhD. Now I'm at the "starting from scratch" phase.
It is a field that attracts a lot of cranks (who are pretty recognizable as being cranks via various patterns). Being a well known physicist must be hell.
You don't even have to be well-known to get crank attention. Post anything with "quantum" in the title on the arXiv and they'll find your e-mail.
Source: this is one of the few times when I can say "trust me, bro" and be entirely sincere about it
Had no idea it was worse. Damn.
Back when I was an undergrad I saw a letter addressed to the department from a German gentleman who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine (this was the department of mechanics). I remember the letter being quite typographically florid and especially the author’s likeness in silhouette.
My advisor had fun finding the flaw in the proposal. Took a few minutes.
I often wondered if demolishing a PM suggestion would be a good extra credit question on an exam.
Funnily enough, Angela Collier also made some pretty good videos for "actually" studying physics. Spoiler: no need to go to Hawaii, or anywhere further than your own couch/desk!
The orange site comments aren't all worthless:
His attention span won't be enough to stick with physics for longer than 4 weeks.
Physics was actually a dangerous sinkhole for my young undiagnosed adhd brain. There's always something else to learn, some new rabbit hole to dive into, some cool research testing the limits of yet another poorly understood frontier. It's like tvtropes but with the mysteries of the universe.
I was fascinated to learn everything, but could never hold a single subject long enough to comprehend it fully. I realized I would never hope to make a meaningful expansion or contribution to the science. You start out with ball bearing cannons and air hockey tables, and next thing you know you're reading about string theory and supersymmetry, dark matter mathematics, the effect of gravity on time, bosons and gluons and photons, Oh my! Then you get an advisor who's been studying the same formula on the same whiteboard for 60 years, trying to trisect an angle with naught but a compass, and if they are kind they tell you to run. If you're smart, you listen.
One thing that may not be visible from outside the profession is that there are a lot of steps in between air-hockey tables and the research frontier, especially for the part of the frontier that gets the most press — black holes, Large Hadron Collider stuff, quantum computing, etc. Wanting to understand any of those things at a level better than (bong rip) man, like, quantum mechanics, dude, requires systematic study. Doing that entirely on one's own might not be impossible, but it's damn hard.
Great no problem I'll just read through the sequences and be all caught up!
remember to carry the thumb drive with your personal frame of a blade of grass falling - you should all have been issued one in your welcome packs by cult greeter upon arrival
I keep it with me always, but never in plain sight in case a computer sees it through a webcam and starts getting ideas
eyelid twitches
it was really hard to read the article when my hands wouldn’t stop making the wanker motion every time this fuckhead decided to whinge about yet another not-problem they’re having. money poisoning’s a fuck of a thing, isn’t it?
anyway I don’t think this is a parody or if it is they’re incredibly dedicated to the bit
Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups.
I’m kinda amazed it’s not multiple Telegram groups, but not at all surprised DOGE is ramshackle enough that this is what passes for organization. it goes to show why they’d hire someone who’d just come hot off of losing interest in robotics after 2 weeks of barely trying and also almost killed themselves doing rich kid vanity hiking, who would then quit their surely extremely important position at DOGE after about a month
If this means I’ll never do something as spectacular as Loom, so be it.
wait, I know that name. loom is just a video and screen recorder with unnecessary social networking and AI features that I’m pretty sure charges a lot for a subscription. loom is fucking Unregistered Hypercam 2 for Workgroups. that’s the product this kid is wanking about? that’s the fucking height of human achievement? fuck you
I know that name. loom is just a video and screen recorder with unnecessary social networking
same. I was like "hold on, don't I know this name?", did a quick search and got to "oh right it's twitch clips enterprise edition" and then
and AI feature
"....but the fuck is AI-based loop clips?"
seriously, they have "AI-based" on their frontpage
i hear they're also a y2k compliant online 3d multimedia solution
I’m kinda amazed it’s not multiple Telegram groups
vulnerabilities for thee but not for me! but kinda same, esp given how much both orange man and felon are willing to ride putin's tumescent instructions to feel some faint warm glow at how much destruction they can wreak
When I got back home and regaled my friends with my mountain stories, one of my friends joked that I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt. So I reached out to some people and got in.
What a fucking idiot. Also a fascist collaborator, but importantly, a fucking idiot.
The combination of 'I realized wanting to be elon is cringe' to -> 'im gonna join doge' -> 'no im gonna do physics' (like elon).
Yo dude you were so close at first, you almost had it! You fool!
Really hope that friend was also just joking because he knew there would be no crash as the default can be extended. (But, considering rich peoples friends are usually all in the same mindspace as the rich person (see for example the text messages revealed in the Musk vs Twitter lawsuit) I doubt this).
‘no im gonna do physics’ (like elon).
At first I was like "wait, didn't Elon have a B.Sc. in Economics" so I searched him and apparently he also has a... B.A. in Physics?
How do you get a liberal arts degree in Physics, what is this even
EDIT: Apparently there are allegations he didn't even finish that and he's lying about it, I don't care enough to actually look into it
When you are rich/famous universities give you degrees. For honour. (e: Turns out the degree thing is a bit more complicated here, according to snopes, im wondering if this was backdated (also of arts? It is a real thing but it feels a bit fishy), but im getting very conspiratorial here, so sorry yes he does have a BA in physics).
This is so fucking cringe. Give the money away and do it all over again if that's what makes you happy.
Jesus fucking Christ.
To really do physics from first principles first you must do maths.
Ah man. 30K could turn my life around, and for some people it's a night out. Well, may everyone get what they deserve, in this life or the next.
The only justice in this world is that which we forge in the fires of chaos with our own bare hands, wrought of empathy and imagination and the blood of a thousand violent ancestors.
To wish for divine intervention to balance the scales is to abdicate your responsibility to your forebears and progeny.
at what goddamn point did you see this person wishing for a godhead to step in, wtf
responsibility to your forebears and progeny
"all that matters is family" groaannnnnnn
I tried forging justice once but couldn't find any chaos fire. I gave up and watched Monkey Man instead.
gotta be an undiscovered french artist from some nowheresville tiny mountains town to really forge justice, otherwise it's just sparkling retribution
I had a lot to say, but honestly y'all got it covered very well.
why are none of these people working on 3d printing guillotines. reading this blog post, there's clearly a use case
I think we need to add the words AI and robotics for it get funding. I'm thinking it could be fully automated and make margaritas.